During oil and gas exploration and production, many types of information are collected and analyzed. The information is used to determine the quantity and quality of hydrocarbons in a reservoir, and to develop or modify strategies for hydrocarbon production. These exploration and production efforts generally involve drilling boreholes, where at least some of the boreholes are converted into permanent well installations such as production wells, injections wells, or monitoring wells.
Many drilling projects involve concurrent drilling of multiple boreholes in a given formation. As such drilling projects increase the depth and horizontal reach of such boreholes, there is an increased risk that such boreholes may stray from their intended trajectories and, in some cases, collide or end up with such poor placements that one or more of the boreholes must be abandoned. Measurement-while-drilling (MWD) survey techniques can provide information to guide such drilling efforts.
While using survey data to guide drilling can help to improve a borehole's trajectory, it also results in drilling delays. Currently, real-time control of drilling operations based on survey data alone is not possible. There are several reasons for this. First, even fast surveys (e.g., to acquire bit toolface, inclination, and azimuth/direction angles) take minutes. In addition, the survey data is often sent to surface after a still time (e.g., 3 minutes after drilling operations are halted). Further, the amount of survey data that can be transmitted to the surface is limited to due to communication bandwidth restrictions. Further, new directional drilling commands take time to determine and to transmit from the surface to the bottomhole assembly (BHA). Currently, surveys are acquired along a borehole path at locations spaced at least 30 ft apart with no drill path data available between the survey locations. While collecting surveys at smaller intervals is possible, drilling delays increase in proportion to the amount of survey data being collected and/or the frequency of performing surveys to guide drilling.
It should be understood, however, that the specific embodiments given in the drawings and detailed description do not limit the disclosure. On the contrary, they provide the foundation for one of ordinary skill to discern the alternative forms, equivalents, and modifications that are encompassed together with one or more of the given embodiments in the scope of the appended claims.